Learnings of Titu the Frog

Titu the frog went to Barabara School in the Amazon rain forests.  Titu had a large transient group of friends but his best friends during the time of the incident were Nunu the tortoise, Ratty the squirrel and Tomco the cat. The four friends used to study in the same class. Mostly they also sat on the same bench and ate together. They also went swimming together.

Titu was good at outdoor sports in general. Being a frog, he was a master high jumper, a good basketball player and a fair long jumper. Nunu, ratty and Tomco were the indoors type and passionate about snooker. They played indoors on most evenings. Titu did not have much interest in it but he would go along with the flow and play snooker with them. They enjoyed and had a good time together. Months went by and Titu kept trying his hand at snooker, occasionally winning a game or two.

One day there was an outdoor sports clinic organised at their school. But Titu had a self concept that he was cool and needed no training. It was shameful to attend such useless clinics, which only very serious animals attended.  He firmly believed other animals would make fun of him if they saw him go for such clinics. He would much rather have a beer party with the snooker group . An interesting thing happened when Nunu and Ratty went to the neighbouring forest to participate in a regional snooker competition. A three member team was required, so Titu tagged along. And for it, he missed his athletics team selection at Barabara. More such instances happened. Most interesting was when succumbing to the strength of the flow, Tutu even attended a snooker clinic on the recommendation of his friends, despite his strong self concept. Snooker clinics are typically much longer than Athletics clinics. Of course he lost interest after a few days, but he spent a lot of time attending a large part of it. Athletics training suffered on account of it. Also, Titu had a healthy physique. But  he often shirked going to the gym and keeping fit.

Then came the Olympics year, the moment of reckoning. Titu was selected to represent Barabara School for high jump at the World Animal Olympics. After the team was announced, Titu became nervous. He had lost his touch and could not even touch 80% of his personal record. It was then that he found his calling. He took a decision to ace the competition. He wanted it badly. He would still hang around with his friends and have a lot of fun  but also began persistent and focused practice. He would get up early in the morning, run ten rounds of the school playground and do strenuous exercises in the gym. He specifically went to a neighbouring forest to attend a high jump clinic. He would spend his evenings bettering his own high jump records. His snooker friends would egg him on at times. The ability was always there, slowly the confidence also came back. His concentration skills, honed by hours spent at the snooker table also helped.

To cut a long fairytale ending short, Titu won the gold medal at the World Animal Olympics and set a new world record anyone is yet to break.

This story came to mind when I was discussing career choices with an Industry person today. After fifteen minutes of nonstop advice, where I could barely get in a word he said “But, please don’t listen to anyone..Err..Listen to everyone but do what your heart feels like. What you intrinsically feel happy about. Irrespective of how popular or sought after or not it is.”

 Pretty clichéd but that reinforces a strong learning over the past two years. The most important is to understand yourself as a person, and do what suits you best. As they say, if you do what you like, you’ll never have to work a single day. He signed off saying, some people like structure and stability while some like a fast paced environment. Some might thrive in making a baby in nine minutes while some would put their foot down and say it will take nine months.

Titu's Learnings

• Leverage your intrinsic competence
• Hone your skills, Practice and Prepare, there’s no substitute for it
• Make your own life decisions, irrespective of the herd or the flow
• Taking a stand doesn't compromise your social relationships, have the best of both the worlds 
• The probabilty of success is mainly limited by how badly you want it
  
• Confidence is a magic pill